The Mailbox: Want to move The Game? Get ready to duck

Sunday

Aug 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2010 at 1:20 PM

If you were reading the tea leaves the past couple of weeks, you would have to surmise that the Ohio State-Michigan game was destined to become an October staple, written in the same permanent ink as Columbus Day and Halloween.

If you were reading the tea leaves the past couple of weeks, you would have to surmise that the Ohio State-Michigan game was destined to become an October staple, written in the same permanent ink as Columbus Day and Halloween.

The idea looked to be so firmly planted in the express lane that, just 10 days ago, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith was telling reporters that he hadn't heard from many fans complaining about the possible move of The Game to The Middle Of The Season.

Perceived or not, such dormant feelings among the populace have surfaced to the point that Smith was moved to make a video Friday explaining the scheduling process and more or less asking for the angry e-mails to desist: "I don't need any more," he said.

Will it matter in the long run that the fans - including those who follow this spiel - are making their feelings known? I don't think so; I think a move off the final week is as inevitable as it is unfortunate. But it's interesting to see how the trial balloons are flying now that they're taking on buckshot.

With that, readers, you have the floor.

Ray: With progress comes conflict, and with conflict there is a price to be paid. Adding Nebraska, creating two divisions and a lucrative championship game, is indeed progressive in nature. Unfortunately, there is bound to be conflict and compromise intertwined with these changes.

But when does the price for this progress become too high? That's easy. The price becomes too high when a sacred tradition and event becomes compromised.

If the Big Ten thinks for one minute it is being forward-thinking and shrewd by, for all intents, ending the importance of this special event and time-honored tradition, it is sorely mistaken. Not only would it be marring this rivalry, it would be rendering itself heartless, cold and unfeeling, all in the name of a few more bucks.

I know in this day and age of massive social networking, reality TV and absurdly lucrative marketing opportunities in sports and business, not much is sacred, including good taste, privacy and one's dignity. But can't the powers that be in the Big Ten be the ones to say, "Hey, this game is sacred; it is worth more than the possibility of a larger number at the bottom of a spread sheet" and preserve this great event's rightful place at the end of each team's regular season?

- Mike Devine, Dublin

Ray: What's the upside to placing Ohio State and Michigan in different divisions? I hate the idea because, as long as the losing team won all of their other conference games, the regular-season matchup would be literally meaningless; they would still go to the Big Ten championship game and have the same chance at a conference title regardless of the loss to their rival.

If there were some overwhelming positive to rendering the league's signature game meaningless, I might understand, but I can't think of a single positive that comes out of ruining college football's marquee rivalry.

- Josh Lehman, via e-mail

Editor: Since OSU and the Big Ten are in the business of selling out traditions, and changing the Ohio State-Michigan game in its current format outdates many traditions, it means all bets are off:

Can we replace Script Ohio at halftime with Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber? How about Block O being replaced by a Nike swoosh? Buckeye leaves since 1968? Maybe dollar-sign stickers to replace those?

Some of my suggestions have to work. If those fail, how about black uniforms and helmets? All bets are off.

- Stacy Martin, Westerville

Ray: Pretty much anything you see out of the athletic department of Ohio State says three things: The People, The Tradition, The Excellence. Sure, it's a marketing slogan, but that second one is funny, isn't it? The Tradition.

I thought a century-old tradition kind of meant something. But I guess not. Maybe Ohio State may want to change its marketing slogan. It doesn't really make sense after the upcoming announcement.

- Bryson Daniels, New Albany

Editor: Ohio State and Michigan playing in the last game of the regular season is the Big Ten brand. I know the conference and university leaders like to make decisions based upon best business practices. As such, the Big Ten should not sell or dilute or try to fix a brand that isn't broken. It brings to mind Coca-Cola changing to New Coke and Classic Coke - it just didn't work.

The OSU-Michigan rivalry has been voted the biggest rivalry in sports partly because of its last-game status. Hundreds of thousands of Ohio State and Michigan football fans have enjoyed 75 years of this tradition and do not want to see it sold on the altar of flawed analytical expediency.

- Ralph DeMarco, via e-mail

Editor: If they move The Game, then Gordon Gee and Gene Smith will be remembered as the people that killed the rivalry. Their obituaries will say they "will best be remembered for destroying the greatest college rivalry in the history of college sport."

I wouldn't want that as my headline.

- Caprice Dittmar, Zanesville

Editor: Why not play The Game as the first game of the conference season to give it new meaning? It would guarantee the Buckeyes and Wolverines didn't play two weeks in a row, if split into separate divisions. If it won't be the last game of the schedule, then making it the first would still make it significant.

I just can't imagine The Game being a random game on a random fall afternoon subject to whatever the schedule machine spits out each year.

- Joshua R. Gallagher, Gahanna

Editor: As a Michigan alumnus and lifelong fan, one date is the first one marked on my calendar every year. It is a time to celebrate with friends and family, to look forward to whatever surprises the day holds, and to mark the passing of time - the ending of one season and a transition into winter and the long wait for the next.

Sure, bowl games (and, in the near future, a conference championship game) may often await, but those are uncertainties that are fluid. The regular-season finale between Ohio State and Michigan, however, is a bedrock of tradition that fans have relied upon to stay the same, amid the ever-changing tides of modern collegiate athletics. And there is no reason why that should have to change.

Let's remember these words, borrowed from HBO's brilliant production, Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry: "One of the things that makes the Michigan-Ohio State game so great and separates it from other sports rivalries is not only does it happen once a year, but it happens at the same time every year.

"You feel you are a part of something that stretches from before you existed and will be here long after you are gone the way it was with our grandparents, the way it was with our parents, the way it is with us, the way it's going to be with our children and grandchildren. The cold, dark, forbidding sky of that late November day in Ann Arbor or Columbus it does set the tone for the whole winter with either being the victor or having been humiliated by your rival."

Go Blue, (and just this once) Go Bucks.

- Tristan M. Pruss, via e-mail

Write me at 34 S. 3rd St., Columbus, 43215, or e-mail sports@dispatch.com. Please include your hometown and telephone number, which will not be published.

Ray Stein is sports editor of The Dispatch.

rstein@dispatch.com

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